By such means, they hoped, the brain of France would control the body, the rural population inevitably taking the position of hewers of wood and drawers of water, both in a political and material sense.  Undoubtedly the Paris Commune made some intelligent changes which pointed the way to reforms of lasting benefit; but it is very questionable whether its aims could have achieved permanence in a land so very largely agricultural as France then was.  Certainly it started its experiment in the worst possible way, namely, by defying the constituted authorities of the nation at large, and by adopting the old revolutionary calendar, and the red flag, the symbol of social revolution.  Thenceforth it was an affair of war to the knife.

The National Government, sitting at Versailles, could not at first act with much vigour.  Many of the line regiments sympathised with the National Guards of Paris:  these were 200,000 strong, and had command of the walls and some of the posts to the south-west of Paris.  The Germans still held the forts to the north and east of the capital, and refused to allow any attack on that side.  It has even been stated that Bismarck favoured the Communists; but this is said to have resulted from their misreading of his promise to maintain a friedlich (peaceful) attitude, as if it were freundlich (friendly)[61].  The full truth as to Bismarck’s relations to the Commune is not known.  The Germans, however, sent back a force of French prisoners, and these with other troops, after beating back the Communist sortie of April 3, began to threaten the defences of the city.  The strife at once took on a savage character, as was inevitable after the murder of two Generals in Paris.  The Versailles troops, treating the Communists as mere rebels, shot their chief officers.  Thereupon the Commune retaliated by ordering the capture of hostages, and by seizing the Archbishop of Paris, and several other ecclesiastics (April 5).  It also decreed the abolition of the budget for Public Worship and the confiscation of clerical and monastic property throughout France—­a proposal which aroused ridicule and contempt.

[Footnote 61:  Debidour, Histoire diplomatique de l’Europe, vol. ii. p. 438-440.]

It would be tedious to dwell on the details of this terrible strife.  Gradually the regular forces overpowered the National Guards of Paris, drove them from the southern forts, and finally (May 21) gained a lodgment within the walls of Paris at the Auteuil gate.  Then followed a week of street-fighting and madness such as Europe had not seen since the Peninsular War.  “Room for the people, for the bare-armed fighting men.  The hour of the revolutionary war has struck.”  This was the placard posted throughout Paris on the 22nd, by order of the Communist chief, Delescluze.  And again, “After the barricades, our houses; after our houses, our ruins.”  Preparations were made to burn down a part of Central Paris to delay